The phrase "education reform" has been co-opted to mean a narrow party program advocated by the reform establishment (mainly billionaires and their designees) that includes a barrage of testing, charter schools, and taking experienced educators out of the classroom.
None of these measures have a track record of success, but the actual facts get obscured by Hollywood films and connected charter groups. It's hard to get into the conversation when the corporate side of education reform uses the term as a bludgeon against anyone who questions its agenda -- even when the concerns are supported by research.
If we're all in this together, why can't we debate what reform should look like, roll up our sleeves and fix our schools -- together? There's a lot of work to be done and we need all hands on deck. This isn't possible unless we can actually have free and open discussion about what schools need. That means that we need to look at all of the challenges involved and tackle them directly. We even need to look at the challenge of poverty, since that seems to be the largest impediment to educational achievement. That's not to say it's a brick wall to success, it's just a crucial factor we must address.
Students in well-funded American schools from high-income families outscore nearly all other countries on standardized tests, yet our aggregate scores are low. Many call this an educational crisis. However, if we are looking at root causes, we cannot overlook the fact that the U.S. has the highest level of child poverty in the industrialized world and children living in poverty are achieving far below their affluent peers.
Schools do not operate in a vacuum. Poverty has devastating effects on a child's social and emotional development. For our poorest students, just getting to school can be a challenge. Anyone who has studied education or psychology knows the venerated "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs," which shows the steps towards self-actualization -- the level where students can effectively use their creativity and problem-solving skills. At the lowest level are basic human needs like food, water, and health. We need to do a better job of making sure those needs are met.
A 90 degree classroom at Hammond Elementary School on Chicago's southwest side. Photo by Garth Liebhaber.
There are some reforms we can make within the walls of a school that will ameliorate the effects of poverty including: wraparound services, small class sizes, and school libraries. This is by no means an exhaustive list of reforms we can provide to fix schools, but it's a place to start and all three have a track record of success. None of these reforms are included on the lists of the reform establishment.
For many of our poorest students, the school nurse is the only medical professional they see and in many Chicago Public Schools, nurses are stretched between 2-3 schools. Schools need to hire more social workers, psychologists, and nurses to make sure students are healthy enough to take their learning to the next level.
One country that always comes up when discussing models for education reform is Finland, a nation that boasts some of the highest test scores in the world. It is also a nation where students are provided small class sizes and the child poverty rate is 3.4% compared to the United States' 21.7%.
What does this mean? The most quoted and comprehensive study of class size, The Tennessee Study of Class Size in the Early School Grades showed significant advantage to students who had small class sizes in early grades. These small class sizes showed to be especially beneficial to students attending schools in poor districts.
In Chicago, 164 public schools -- nearly 1 in 4 elementary schools and 51 high schools do not have school libraries. Library hours are typically one of the first cutbacks in city budgets, leaving many of Chicago's poorest students without access to books. This puts them at a disadvantage as access to books has shown to shrink the "achievement gap."
In this video, University of Southern California Professor Emeritus Stephen Krashen explains in detail the importance of access to books for students.
So what can civic-minded corporations do to help fix our schools?
They can start by paying their taxes, which will fund these reform efforts. That's how they show real concern for the community. If they want to do more, they can look at the model used in McDowell County, West Virginia where a partnership was forged between corporations, foundations, and the teachers union.
The partners who signed on agreed to improve housing, transportation, and jobs in the poverty-stricken county. They know all of these factors contribute to low educational achievement. Instead of pointing fingers like the rest of the reform establishment, they offered a hand.
Follow Kenzo Shibata on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kenzoshibata
"One successful example of early intervention is home visitation by childcare experts, like those from the Nurse-Family Partnership. This organization sends nurses to visit poor, vulnerable women who are pregnant for the first time. The nurse warns against smoking and alcohol and drug abuse, and later encourages breast-feeding and good nutrition, while coaxing mothers to cuddle their children and read to them. This program continues until the child is 2.
At age 6, studies have found, these children are only one-third as likely to have behavioral or intellectual problems as others who weren’t enrolled. At age 15, the children are less than half as likely to have been arrested."
If we are trying to drive improvements, targeting the youngest is likely to be most cost effective on the long run.
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petitions/all/0/2/18
Sign in at Whitehouse.gov/petitions. Then go to education and find the library petition. Our children will thank you.
I didn't see 'harsh'. I see 'truth'.
You are correct, there is a double standard on funding. Charter schools consistently get less money per student than traditional public schools and have to pay for things like rent out of that money, which is built in for tps.
However, these hidden advantages that the teachers unions have built in cannot override the success of charter schools and we can continue to hope that charters will push our school systems into the 21st century. But only if we continue to fight the power of the teachers unions on behalf of our children.
That says it all. What we have is mostly a poverty problem, not an educational problem.
The community of the school is the second most important social experience of a person in America. Children spend an average of 25 hours a week 10 months a year for 12 years of their lives in this social community whose mission is to help children learn how to be successful in our current global economic system. Therefore based on my experience "Teaching is the art of motivating children to want to learn" and the ability to relate with youngsters creatively is the basic ingredient of a successful educator. The same is true of administrators who serve as this community's leaders, student disciplinarians and mentors for school personnel.
I have developed programs that empowered students who dramatically improved their academic skills. The basic premise was to connect with a youngster and help him/her to see the power they had in creating a life they could be proud of despite the limitations of their poor and dysfunctional families.
To wit:
The set up. Two children born on the same day. Child A is born to parents of affluence. Child B is born to parents of poverty. Both children are born with equal intelligence and ability
The PARENTS of child A: Are educated, VALUE education, know from experience the role education played in their success, don’t curse at their children, don’t participate in gang/illegal activity, expose their children to literature/arts/sports, feed their children a healthy diet, don’t enable the child by siding with them even when the child is wrong, speak standard English and DON’T tolerate street jargon in the home … I could go on.
The PARENTS of child B: Didn’t finish high school, DESPISE education and those associated with it or have post high school degrees, curse at their children 24-7, not only participate in gang/illegal activity but induct their children into the “gangster lifestyle,” respond to literature/arts/sports with “F” that “S” feed the kids crap, enable their kids by blaming teachers with everything including the child’s refusal to work or “say-dem-kinda-words” chastise children for “trying-to-talk-white” when using standard English
I am in direct confrontation with reformers who insist that teachers are the blame for “failing schools.” I hope to work with you some day .
Poverty is a problem, but the childhood environment is more important. Poor immigrants from areas that value education and discipline show that it can be done - and how it is done. Note that the children of such immigrants typically do not stay poor.
Social agencies and churches should focus on pregnant mothers and the early childhood environment. Such intervention is likely to be far more cost effective than efforts many years later.
I was born in a Catholic hospital for the indigent in Oakland. My father had been fired for refusing to sign the loyalty oath so he took a job as the night manager of a filling station and my mother took a job as a live-in nanny - which gave them a room. Eventually, my father completed his degree. But they never outlived the frugality they had grown up in and lived.
There was one summer when I was working at college where I would have been counted as homeless - I was living in a quonset hut the research group I was working for used for high voltage equipment - I slept on a shelf behind some of the gear.
My parents, who grew up in the depression noted that I had learned a level of frugality that matched anything they had seen growing up.
The true test of any educational reformer is whether or nor the policies they advocate help build better schools and school environments for our children WITHOUT the reformer or the reformers' allies profiting from the "educational reform" and destruction of public education.
Charter schools are run by people who allow THEMSELVES profit. e.g. "Managers" of charter schools make hundreds of thousands of dollars. People who argue for the destruction of public education are advocating the "parking meterization" of our schools. Any "efficiency" achieved in the schools will not benefit society, but rather, the limited few who have the power and means to set their own agendas.
Let all true educational reformers, those who do not seek profit from the "reform" or the "privitization" of our collective assets --yes, public means we all own it, which, even in a capitalistic society is good in some instances: water, roads, air, schools, government, parks) distance themselves from the profiteers and privateers. All others are carpet baggers and sophists who need to be called out for what they are: educational deformers and profiteers who are disrupting the lives of our most vulnerable citizens in pursuit of money and public disintegration.
You forget to mention progressive complaints about unions. The contracts are unwieldy with absurd work rules that get in the way of providing a good education. In most jurisdictions it is still almost impossible to fire a bad teacher. And we know that the quality of the teacher is the most important school-based factor in providing a good education.
Public schools need to be funded equitably , the kid in Cairo, Ford Heights and Rockford should get the same amount as the kid from Kennilworth , Oakbrook or Geneva ,,,,,